I imagine I'm one of those perfectionists you're complaining about because I don't work with carnist leftists ie 95% of them

@benroyce

This is the larger point I was trying to make and why I don't consider what I did as hijacking

You start off by saying the left must be united against the right, but then you carve out a specific exception for when we should shun those on the "left". When people "divide the left" they do it for principled reasons not because theyre opposed to any sort of collaboration. In fact it is the whole idea of "leftist unity" that is idealist, the idea that eveyrone on the left shares fundamental values is just naive and kind of patronising. Really the labels left and right aren't very useful at all they are broad tendancies and don't point to any particular ideology or set of foundational beliefs.

@ambiguous_yelp

like i said i don't have a problem with your agenda, but i might suggest an improvement in your approach

if you want to win converts and exert more influence, don't proactively go out of your way to make enemies with potential allies or at least ideology-adjacent people

we both know MAGA laughs at you, and me. so why must we fight? what is achieved? giving MAGA aid by bickering with each other while they advance?

lead with inclusion, not exclusion

@benroyce

There's such a thing as toxic positivity and inclusion, I think its a dangerous idea to say that everyone on the broadly defined "left" should put aside their differences to fight the right. Especially when many of the same values that make the right a threat poison the left: what about people who want to abolish capitalism and call lgbt a capitalist scourge, what about leftists that defend china as a necessary evil to overthrow western hegemony, or the example I gave leftists that uphold human supremacist power structures and kill other animals for their own enjoyment, or leftists that perpetuate white supremacy or ableism. These are just off the top of my head

#Left #Leftism #Capitalism #LGBT #China #HumanSupremacy #WhiteSupremacy #Ableism

Part of the reason for the USA's failure is MAGA but the other big aspect is a left that does not engage the real enemy

Toxic idealism

Spineless capitulation

Mindless cynicism

"Polite society" "high road" cluelessness

And lazy entitlement

Not financial entitlement but this obtuse entitled foolishness that we have the time and space to criticize some aspect of the left according to deranged standards of perfection when we're facing literal fascism

Make MAGA the target of your venom

@benroyce

I too look at someone like Chuck "The Lesser Evil" Schumer right now and think the dem's problem is progressives and "toxic idealism" of wanting a government that works for people.

If only we had more like Schumer (again), then Dems would start fighting back...surely. I mean, I know those exact kind of Democrats just voted to fund DHS, twice, but if we just cover our eyes and vote blue no matter who it will all work out. I mean it's gotta, right? Right guys?

Jesus fucking christ.

@davoyager

Toxic idealism is when there is a better choice but it is scorned or attacked because it is not ideal

There is only better or worse in this world. There will never be any other choice. Forever

So people who do not choose better because they are walled off into inaction by their foolish toxic idealism are only aiding fascism

This sort of inept idiocy is a very real phenomenon unfortunately

Perfect is not the enemy of good

But plenty of morons insist it must be

@ambiguous_yelp

interesting hijacking angle

and while i have no problem with your agenda, the way you hijack this discussion isn't going to win you any converts

@TenPastTwo

#tankies are mindless contrarians

"i hate the usa so i support vile regimes" is not principled nor moral

the moral, principled approach is to castigate the #USA *and* #Russia

supporting Russian #imperialism in the name of opposing American imperialism is just fucking stupid

so supposedly intellectual #NoamChomsky is functioning on the same level as a 14 year old edgelord in this fashion

#Chomsky's pedophile apologism in the #EpsteinFiles is just the final nail in the coffin

@TenPastTwo @benroyce

The German leftist party "Die Linke" had a _lot_ of Tankies who made all sorts of excuses for Putin.

Fortunately, the bulk of these seemed to have moved on to the "Bündnis Sarah Wagenknecht", who (apart from being complete Putin stooges) propagated a policy of, er, "Nationalistic Socialism".

Then they received 4.98% of the vote in the last federal election - which was just shy of the 5% they needed to actually get any seats. It was _glorious_.

And Die Linke did much better at 8.8%, and has now transformed into a party that I can actually respect.

@juergen_hubert @TenPastTwo

What do we do with these tankies. They seem beyond redemption. In fact I think they merely represent some incoherent ideological evolutionary intermediate species before their full metamorphosis into outright far right fascism